Empire of Bones (39 page)

Her mouth gaped open, but her throat was sealed, the muscles refusing to respond; she could not scream. The virus was racing mrough her cells, searching for the initial infection. Distantly she understood what Ir Yth had done. The virus would itself infect die communica-tions network, sending instructions of mutation down the viral lines until each nexus convulsed into death.

Amir
! Kharishma shouted, inside her head, but he was al-ready awake and aware. She snatched a glimpse of the stair-well that led from the main hall of the palace to her bedroom as he raced up the stairs. She tried to shut herself down, but she couldn't fight the invader within. The enormity of what Ir Yth was prepared to do suddenly crashed in upon her con-sciousness; it was as though all Kharishma's inflated self-importance and paranoia and sense of destiny had contributed to this moment and to her realization of what she had to un-dertake. Anand was coming through the door, die gun raised; Ir Yth turned, but he was already poised to fire.

No
! Kharishma cried, inside his mind.
Me, Amir! She's in-fected the network^. You have to kill me!

Before it's too late
!—And to her horror and triumph and surprise, he turned the gun on her and fired.

The bullet hit her square in the chest, and she was flung back against the wall with the force of the impact.

There was no pain, and the virus held her fleeing awareness together for a split second, enough for her to see Anand drop to his knees beneath the weight of the
raksasa's
fury, and of his own grief.

You next, then
, Ir Yth hissed, but for Kharishma there was nothing but darkness and stars.

12. )amunotrt/ Himalaya

When Jaya recovered consciousness, it was dawn. She raised her head and discovered that she had been lying in Sirru's lap. Her cheek was marked with the pattern of the folds of his robe. She was very stiff and very cold, but the life moved swiftly back into her aching limbs. She recovered faster these days; she could not have done this ten years ago. Above her, Sirru's grave face looked down.

"Are you all right?"

"I think so. What happened?"

"Ir Yth fed something back into the network—instructions for the virus to change, become lethal. But the termination of the nexus prevented further infection."

Jaya sat back on her heels, rubbing her neck.

"You mean Kharishma Kharim
died
, Sirru. I might have despised her for making a mockery of my life, but that isn't the point. When you live with death, you learn what it means. She may have been mad, she may have done the right thing for the wrong reasons, but she saved us. Doesn't that mean anything to you?"

Sirru said, very gently, "Yes, it does. But death to us is not the same tragedy that it is to you. When you are developed, you will understand this."

"God, Sirru. That's development?"

"We don't identify themselves as you do. We can remake her, if you wish."

The golden gaze was bewildered. Jaya looked at him and sighed.

"Just before she died, I saw Anand… If he's infected too, why didn't Ir Yth get at him? What
happened
, Sirru?"

But the alien only shook his head.

"I do not know. Anand is like a light that has gone out. I cannot sense him." He added, diffidently, "If you wish to be away from me for a while, I will understand."

Jaya nodded. "I think that's a good idea. I'll talk to you later." She felt as fragile as a moth just emerged from its co-coon, a legacy not only of the time on the network but also of the renewed realization of the differences between Sirru and herself. He was the colonizer, someone to whom the natives were no more than resources to be utilized.
And like all colo-nizers, he thinks he's doing us a favor
.

But despite the gulf between them, she felt closer to Sirru than to anyone except Rakh. And that, she thought now, was an unwise way to feel. She wondered, not entirely irrelevantly, whether Amir Anand might have British blood.

She wandered slowly out of the compound and onto the hillside. The dawn light above the rim of the mountains was as cold and clear as water. An owl sailed down the valley on great silent wings, heading into the shadows after hunting, and the air smelled fresh and scented with herbs. Jaya sat down on a stone and knotted her hands in her lap, and for the first time in many years she prayed, not to Durga of vengeance, but to Sarasvati: goddess of knowledge, and under-standing, and good judgment. Qualities which, Jaya felt, she sadly lacked.

13. Ixhokanara lalace

"It is a good thing that I am a light sleeper," Naran Tokai said, icily. He gazed down at Ir Yth as she crouched over the prone form of Amir Anand. "Although the racket that has been go-ing on in here would wake the dead. I should like an explana-tion."

/
owe you nothing. I need give no account of myself to you
.

"Indeed? I beg to disagree. I am quite well aware, madam, that you have lied to me from the moment we first met. I have played along because I hoped for some personal advantage to come from all this. But regrettably, I am by no means now sure that this will be forthcoming."

He took a step forward. The cane informed him that Ir Yth was attempting pheromonal interference.

Tokai smiled.

"I'm afraid that won't work with me. I'm not like poor Anand, you know, governed by my hormones; in fact, I have very few left. So you may very well be shouting commands, but I fear I am deaf. Now. I require an explanation." He took another step, making sure that he was well out of Ir Yth's reach.

Get away from me.

"We're not a very well-matched fighting pair, are we? An old man, and a—something." He stroked a finger down the pommel of the cane, and a razor-edged ridge glided out. "On the other hand, I'm armed, and I don't think you are. At least not with weapons that will harm me. Wake him up."

I cannot.

"
Wake him
." The pointed tip of the cane hovered in the di-rection of Ir Yth's midriff. Muttering to herself, the
raksasa
looked at Anand. Some kind of interference was taking place, revealed by the distorted messages that were reaching Tokai through the cane. Anand stirred and groaned.

"Anand? Get up, please."

The butcher-prince crawled to the bed and hauled himself upright, staring fixedly away from the ruined corpse of Kharishma Kharim.

"Why did you kill her, Anand? A lover's quarrel, or some-thing more serious?"

In a hoarse, strained voice that sounded nothing like his usual cultured tones, Anand explained, "We're linked. To the other alien. It told Kharishma that Ir Yth plans to destroy hu-manity. Kharishma believed it."

"I see. Well. Destruction of the world's population. Ambitious, but I'd like to know why—" Tokai began to say, but something suddenly snapped deep within the
raf{sasa's
golden gaze. He could feel panic boiling off her, even without the aid of the cane. Ir Yth rushed at him, crouching low like an insect, with a curious scuttling motion. Anand leaped for the gun.

"No! Don't shoot her!" Tokai cried. He dodged away, but the
raksasa's
tongue flickered out, lancing across his forearm and leaving a bloody trail in its wake. Cursing, Tokai, with a neat and economical motion of the cane, whirled around and spiked the razor point through Ir Yth's throat. The
ra'tsasa
crumpled to the floor without a sound. There was suprisingly little blood, though Tokai noticed absently that Ir Yth's throat seemed to be trying to seal itself. He held the cane at the ready, but the fluttering flesh subsided and the
ra'tsasa
lay as still and stiff as a dried spider.

"Well, Amir," Tokai said, in a voice that was not as steady as he would have liked. "It's entirely possible that we've just saved the world. Perhaps you and I are destined to be heroes after all."

But Anand was kneeling beside Kharishma's body, his face stricken. "And perhaps not."

Tokai found it hard to grieve for a woman whom he barely knew and in any case disliked, but the exigencies
of face
im-pelled him to honor Anand's mourning. Anand wanted to bury Kharishma in the rose garden, but Tokai wouldn't let him. Kharishma's body, Anand was told, must be taken to the lab, along with the desiccated corpse of Ir Yth, for tests. This unleashed an outburst of cold fury from Anand, which Tokai placidly withstood, dwelling all the while on how best to get rid of Anand when the time came. At last, Tokai grew tired of the tirade and pointed out the realities of Anand's position, or lack of it, yet again.

"Might I remind you that you have nothing? Your ances-tral lands are now mine. You are the last of your line. I have sufficient influence with the authorities to have you put away for life or simply killed, and I do not think there are many who would mourn your passing. You will do, Anand, pre-cisely as I say, or face the consequences."

"You forget," Anand said, through gritted teeth, "I am your one last game piece. I know where the second alien is, and Jaya with him. Without me, it is
you
who have nothing."

They stared at each other, locked in stalemate; then Anand spun on his heel in disgust and left the room.

Later, he re-turned, to deliver a strained, white-lipped apology that was mirrored by Tokai's own. They needed each other, it seemed, although neither liked the fact.

Prudently, during Anand's brief absence the old man had had Kharishma's ruined body removed and sent to the lab, forcing Anand to compromise with a ceremony in the garden. Tokai declined to attend, and so the only mourner was Anand himself. Tokai watched him as he knelt, head bowed, among the falling petals of the roses, drifting down on the evening wind. He watched for a moment, feeling nothing, and then turned away and reached for the phone, to contact the lab in Varanasi.

It seemed that the results of the
raksasa's
autopsy had al-ready proved exciting, and promised to be profitable. Ir Yth was a walking factory of disease; the complex ridges of her torso were a honeycomb of hived cells, each containing neat layers of viruses. Tokai's researchers did not yet know what any of these might be capable of; they were proceeding, natu-rally, with the utmost caution. Tokai remained behind only to keep an eye on Anand. If matters had progressed ideally, he'd have had the butcher-prince in cold storage, too, but he needed Anand in order to track down the other alien. Having lost Ir Yth; and fully aware of how useful her death might prove, he was eager to acquire his second game piece. But as soon as the results were fully analyzed, Tokai thought, he would see if he could gain access to this curious and alien net-work himself, and remove the need for Anand.

14. /amunotri/ Himalaya

Jaya lifted the field glasses from her eyes and squinted into the glare. Amir Anand's convoy was not yet visible, but she knew it was coming. Sirru had taught her how to filter die mass of the network, concentrating only on certain minds. Ir Yth was dead. When she learned this, Jaya felt herself grow weak with relief, and she lost no time in telling the others. The knowl-edge warmed her, but she couldn't help remembering that Ir Yth was only one of many. There were probably millions of
Itfiaithoi
, and what if all of them were the enemy?

She kept getting fractured glimpses through Anand's eyes: the mountains at dusk, enveloped in mist; a hawk rising high over the pass. Something of Anand's helpless rage against a world that he felt had betrayed him was also communicated down the net-work, and for the first time Jaya began to feel that she understood him. A family that had sided with the British whose blood they shared, a legacy of separation from the people whom the Anands governed, and then the loss of fortune and place had all con-tributed to make the butcher-prince what he was today.

But Jaya did not want to understand Anand. He really did believe that caste made him superior to anyone who wasn't Brahmin or Westerner, and it was the unquestioning racist ar-rogance of that belief which made her so angry. And yet she couldn't help feeling a reluctant pity, that he was just as much a victim of the system which produced him as was she herself. And yet, and yet… /
decided long ago that I was
tired of being a victim. How about you, Amir
? She tried to send the question to him, but he wasn't listening, and she doubted it would have had any effect on him anyway.

They had left the fortress at Yamunotri behind. Rajira and the child were deep in coma and could not be moved, so Jaya had returned to her original plan. Years ago, she remembered standing on the slopes of these very hills and watching a plover lure a hawk away from her nest, flopping across the scrub with a trailing wing. Once the plover was sure that the hawk had been led from the nest and confused, she had taken off like a rocket into the trees where the predator could not follow. Jaya and Sirru had become plovers, heading into the heights to draw Anand away. Jaya planned to take Sirru into the glacial fastness beyond the lake of Saptarishi Kund, and it would not matter if Anand knew where they had gone. If he followed, he would be as easy to pick off as a fledgling in the nest.

The sun hovered low, for it was almost evening now and there were thunderheads over the peaks, tinged orange with the light of the sun. There was the smell of rain on the wind and a cloud shadow sailed across the slopes, darkening Jaya's sight. She wondered what was happening back at the fort. The last glimpse she'd had was of Rakh waiting at the foot of the fortress, holding two of the automatic MK16 rifles, as she and Sirru were leaving.

"One for you and one for him," Rakh had said gruffly.

For some reason, Jaya had expected the alien to protest, but he'd looked at the rifle thoughtfully for a moment, then slung it over his shoulder.

"Don't do anything with that unless I tell you to," Jaya had said, hastily.

Sirru's gaze had been bland. "Naturally not."

Rakh had reached out and clasped Jaya's hands. "Commander?" She'd stared at him, numbly. "I believe that my brother is watching over us both. He will show you the paths. If we do not see one another again—well. I wish you luck."